By boat to Siem Reap

As it came highly recommended by some friends, we decided to take the boat from Battambang to Siem Reap. The trip took around eight hours and was taking us across the amazing Tonle Sap lake and river system. The Tonle Sap lake is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia and of crucial importance for Cambodia since its floodplain is the perfect breeding ground for fish and it thus provides 60% of Cambodian's protein intake. Tonle Sap shrinks and expands dramatically with the seasons (increasing its surface area by five times during the monsoon season) and it even changes its direction of flow two times a year. Unfortunately, the volume and strength of this reverse flow is threatened by recent dam building activities in China and Laos already resulting in a significant reduction of fish catches.

Doreen on our boat:



The boat trip enabled us to get an amazing insight into daily Cambodian river life. We passed by stilt-houses...



... floating houses...

... and houses I would rather not dare to enter :-)

Typical river scene:



A family doing their daily fishing:

The view from our boat:

The view from the deck:

Villages in the area are prepared for the seasonal flooding and all traffic takes place by boat. Just imagine how different life is - no big gardens, no walking and you will never feel obligated to go for a jog :-)

Space in the houses is very limited, but people are very creative in using every bit of space available. Below you find a few houses of a floating village:

The blue building below is a school (apparently all schools are painted in light blue) and we were just passing by when classes were over. Instead of jumping on the school bus, all school children just jumped onto a boat and took themselves home:

Another "school boat":

A "grocery boat":



Children hanging out next to the river (three decades of war did have an effect on Cambodia's population resulting in approximately 50% of the population today being younger than 20 years):

Another school: